Develop a deeper understanding
of the Common Core State
Standards by learning from student
work on performance tasks

Understanding Proficiency provides resources to help educators develop a deeper understanding of the Common Core State Standards by analyzing student work on performance tasks. Central to these resources are samples of real student work on the Smarter Balanced Practice Test Mathematics and ELA/Literacy performance tasks.

The student work has been collected, scored and annotated by teachers to provide an illustration of proficiency across the range of score levels possible for each task. The scores were confirmed by WestEd and SCALE content specialists. These scores are not official Smarter Balanced scores.

Overview

Smarter Balanced summative assessments are comprised of two different tests, a Computer Adaptive Test (CAT) and a performance task. Understanding Proficiency provides tools and resources to help you learn about how Smarter Balanced performance tasks measure student mastery of the Common Core State Standards.

Smarter Balanced Summative Assessment

ELA/Literacy

Computer Adaptive Test

Performance Task

Mathematics

Computer Adaptive Test

Performance Task

How Smarter Balanced Assessments Fit into an Assessment Continuum

This video, created by WestEd and SCALE for a face-to-face professional development event called Building Educator Assessment Literacy (BEAL), provides an overview of Smarter Balanced performance tasks, their role in the Smarter Balanced assessment system, and how they fit into the assessment continuum.